Rat Race MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +3 Content: -2

With the every growing number of reality TV shows, this concept could show up any day. British comedian and Monty Python alumni John Cleese, plays the wealthy owner of a Las Vegas casino who offers high rollers the chance to bet on almost anything. In this slapstick, ensemble comedy, six people are selected at random by special coins won from slot machines. The six are given identical keys and offered the chance to win two million dollars by being the first to unlock the box in a small southern New Mexico town, appropriately named Silver City. Unknown to the racers, high stakes gamblers are betting on who will win. The contestants include Whoopi Goldberg as a woman just united with her long lost daughter, Seth Green as the smarter of two brothers out to scam the world, Rowan Atkinson, of Mister Bean fame, as a narcoleptic Italian tourist, Cuba Gooding Junior as a football referee blamed for a major game upset, Jon Lovitz as head of a vacationing family, and Breckin Meyer as an uptight, fledgling lawyer worried about his potential future on the Supreme Court. A seeming blend of the 1963 comedy ITS A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD and 1981s CANNONBALL RUN, the originals are much funnier. But comedy-hungry crowds will turn out for the cast.

But the comedy is questionable at best. Less than humorous sight gags include a busload of Lucille Ball imitators, a cow dangling from a hot air balloon while two racers fight an udder war, a transplant heart bouncing around a truck and Adolph Hitler’s car driven into a war veteran gathering. Numerous crude and obscene words are used, including some by the family children, although they are mildly corrected once. Although he finally confesses, Lovitz’s father lies to his family to hide the race concept and its large winnings. Laws and rules are tossed to the four winds in the rush for riches. While greed is the motivation, charity wins in the end. Some crude sexual references are made as part of a wager, but sexual content is limited. However, frequent foul language is the major trap in RAT RACE.

Preview Reviewer: Paul Bicking
Distributor: Paramount Pictures, 5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038